1 tablespoon of margarine (can it be light? yes. can it be butter? yes. can it be shortening? gross… do you want to be green or not, geez?)
2 tablespoons of flour
1 ½ cups hot milk (it must be hot, so that the sauce doesn’t get lumpy, I mean, the soufflé!)
1 teacup of grated cheese (that’s a mom-type measurement, right? “1 teacup” can be translated as “50 grams more or less.” if it’s my mother, it’s always more)
1 teacup of any cheese cut in cubes (leftover mozzarella? put it in. have a dried out piece of parmesan? throw it in the pan! a chunk of brie? go for it!)
3 eggs
1 pinch of nutmeg (this is to see if you cook a looootttt: it is a pellet that looks like a big peanut that you grate and use the powder to make food smell good and have a characteristic taste. it is in the spices section of the supermarket.)
butter and breadcrumbs for greasing the pan
How do you make it?
0. Heat the oven to around 200 degrees. Grab a medium-sized pan or dish and grease it with butter. When it is pretty sticky, sprinkle in the bread crumbs. This prevents the soufflé from sticking to the pan. Put the dish aside because you’ll only use it again at step 5.
1. Place a small pan with the butter and flour over low heat and stir until golden. Remove the pan from the heat and slowly add milk while constantly stirring so that it won’t get lumpy. Don’t forget to turn off the burner (I’m an expert at setting my apron on fire…)
PS for step 1: If lumps form, do not panic, just put the sauce in the blender and pick up from here.
2. Place the pan on a low fire again and stir the sauce until it boils. The secret is to never stop stirring.
3. Remove from heat (this time for good!) and add cheeses, yolks, and nutmeg. If you want, add a bit of salt (if you are using yellow cheeses I do not recommend adding salt because yellow cheese is already quite salty). Place aside.
4. Beat the egg whites and carefully mix them into the sauce that you set aside. “Carefully” stirring is easiest done with a fork.
5. Pour the batter into the pan or dish mentioned in step zero of this step by step. Put it in the oven (which should already be hooootttt) and let it brown. Only remove the soufflé from the oven exactly when you take it to the table because that bugger collapses quickly!
With the difficulties of those who want to become a vegetarian in mind, I decided to make this one-month plan. Every day, I’ll post a photo of one of my meals, commenting on my choices and suggesting other options. And in the evening, I’ll post an easy recipe, either given by my many vegetarian friends or suggested by you, my dear reader. Simple tips, to help people like myself who eat their lunch around the office and have no time and/patience to cook in the evening.
If you decide not to give up eating eggs and cheese, as it was my case, you’ll have no problem eating out. But if you decide to opt for food with no animal products, you better know how to cook or look for some specialized restaurants, because if the life of a vegetarian who eats out is no picnic that of vegans is even tougher.
A last comment, before finishing this post: I must say that I am not a very traditional vegetarian. I hate soy protein, I think tofu tastes like some sort of Styrofoam that went wrong and I’m terrified of those green foods that try to mimic “red foods”. Soy bologna? Soy-protein hamburger? Help! But I’m also a very curious person. So, I’ll keep on trying new things and telling you about it here.
Among many mistakes, a few successes and some extra pounds ─ I had thought that vegetarians lost weight ─ I discovered a few tricks used by those who do not eat meat. Today, after two years following a vegetarian diet, I no longer struggle with the issues I faced in the beginning. If I were to summarize what I’ve learned, everything would come down to these four golden rules:
Pasta includes more than just noodles!
It is easy to find pasta with cheese or tomato sauce, but it’s also fattening. And this happens fast. Within two weeks, I had gained two kilos. Go easy on pasta.
Egg, milk, cheese or soy?
Proteins are really important and therefore they should be included in every meal. Without them, you get hungry very quickly. Choose yours and go for it.
The Rule of Six Meals
Eating more times becomes a rule for those who are giving up meat. Even after having a well-balanced lunch, I used to have a snack in the afternoon. Eat six times per day.
Drink water
The reasoning is simple: if you eat lots of fiber and do not drink much water, you’ll be constipated. Drink tea, water, juice, milk, shakes… You won’t be short of options.
Becoming a vegetarian was not in my plans. It is true that, as a child, my stomach felt funny at the sight of the dishes they prepared for our Christmas dinner, but eating a steak, a piece of fish or a nice filet mignon medallion was never a dilemma.
Although meat was part of my diet, I didn’t eat it very often. I was fine having a meal with no animal protein. That made me believe that I could accept the challenge proposed by Bons Fluidos magazine two years ago, which was to be a vegetarian for one month. I was mistaken.
I had to deal with the anguish of not knowing what to eat right in the first week of the experience. Would I have to survive only on salad? I can easily eat an entire head of lettuce, but would it be enough to keep me nourished? And would I be able to eat at a regular restaurant or would I have to find a specialized place to have lunch during the week?
No sooner winter arrives and supermarkets and flower shops are filled with tulips, considered by many the most beautiful flower. If you bought or were given these beauties, you should know that they are originally from cold European regions. The tulips sold in Brazil are grown in greenhouses under controlled temperatures and transported in refrigerated trucks because, even during winter, our temperatures are not cold enough for them. So, don’t be disappointed if your plant fails to sprout again, even after following all the tips below: Here they are:
What to do while the potted tulip is in full blossom
1. Wait until the soil is dry to water the plant ─ too much moisture attracts fungi, which kills the plant.
2. Keep it indoors, preferably next to a sunlit window. It loves the sun, but it has to be accompanied by some cold winter breeze.
What to do once the flower withers
1. The plant will lose all of its leaves as soon as the flower withers. When the time comes, cut off the stems and dig up the plant. You’ll find a bulb, which looks like an onion.
2. Wash the bulb under running water and remove all of the soil by rubbing it ─ just as you would do with a potato before pealing it.
3. Let the bulb dry under the sun. Then, put it in a paper bag and keep it in your fridge’s vegetable drawer. Next fall, plant the bulb in a pot using 4 parts of sand, 4 parts of soil and 2 parts of organic compost (you can find them at gardening stores). The hole should be two times the depth of the bulb.
4. Leave the pot in the sun and only water it when it’s dry. Soon after that, the bulb will sprout, the leaves will appear and, as winter arrives, you will have new tulips!
